The Government
of India is seeking help of the Pakistani politician,
Mr. Altaf Hussain, founder and chief of the Muttahida
Qaumi Movement (MQM), for the solution of the Kashmir
dispute. Mr. Hussain is on a four-day visit to India,
ostensibly to partake in an international conference organized
by an Indian newspaper.
The MQM is an outfit based in urban Karachi
and Hyderabad comprising refugees who settled in Pakistan
after the 1947 partition. It has enough strength to become
a balancing force in the divided Parliament of Pakistan
and has been part of all governments, whether of Benazir
Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif or the Army.
The Government of India views Mr. Hussain’s
visit to India as a part of a larger contact program with
Pakistan’s political parties. The Jamiat Ulema-I-Islam
leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the Awami National Party
Chief, Asfandyar Wali and the Pakistan People’s
Party leader, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, have visited India
in recent times.
Sources at the South Block, the office
of the Indian Prime Minister, say that on November 4,
Mr. Hussain met Security Advisor, JN Dixit soon after
his arrival in the capital. In the night, Mr. Hussain
called on the Pakistan High Commissioner.
He will see leaders of the All Parties
Hurriyat Conference of Kashmir as Yasin Malik, Geelani,
Mir Waiz, Shabbir Shah are in Delhi. On Saturday he will
meet Foreign Minister Natwar Singh and Congress leader
Sonia Gandhi. But no appointment with Prime Minister Dr.
Manmohan Singh has yet been fixed. There is a possibility
that he would travel to Ajmer and Agra. On Thursday he
visited the Dargah Sharif of Khawaja Nizamuddin Aulia.
The Government of India has put him in
a lavish suite under a foolproof security at a five-star
hotel, Maurya Sheraton. This itself shows that New Delhi
is taking his visit rather seriously and wants to extract
some political capital out of it.
In normal times, under any political government,
if Mr Altaf Hussain had paid such a visit to India, he
would have been declared an Indian agent and his party
may have been banned by the Army but since he is now a
partner with the Army and considers General Musharraf,
himself an Indian refugee or a Mohajir, as a representative
of Mohajirs, his Indian visit has raised few eyebrows
in the Pakistani establishment.
Surprisingly Mr. Altaf Hussain lives in
exile in London and though his party is in power in Pakistan,
he has refused to return to his country. Instead he had
obtained British citizenship and fears that if he landed
in Pakistan he would be physically eliminated by either
the opponents of Musharraf or parts of the Army itself.
Official sources say that the Government
of India is seeking his help in some way to make it easier
for General Musharraf to agree to the Indian terms on
a settlement of Kashmir.
It is noteworthy that in a similar conference
held last year, Mr. Altaf Hussain had refused to participate,
but this time, the Indian High Commission in London convinced
him to participate in the conference.
Some Pakistan watchers are not very enthusiastic
as far as Altaf Hussain’s possible role in the settlement
of the Kashmir dispute is concerned. A Kashmir expert
and journalist Moin Ejaz says, “In fact, the MQM
has lost its credibility as a political party in Pakistan.
Altaf Hussain is supporting Gen. Pervez Musharraf who
has made his party man Ishrat-ul-bad, the Governor of
Sindh against whom several criminal cases are pending.
The Pakistan People’s Party is the largest single
party in Sindh, but Altaf Hussain did not let if form
the Sindh Government.”
Moin Ejaz says that the Government of
India would gain nothing by prompting Altaf Hussain to
mediate between Gen. Musharraf and Dr. Manmohan Singh
on the issue of Kashmir. He says Mr. Hussain has been
shamelessly supporting an Army dictatorship while claiming
to be a democratic political party. His support to Gen.
Musharraf on the issue of the LFO was critical.”
According to Ejaz, Altaf Hussain has been
publicly supporting the Army even on the issue of General
Musharraf's uniform. “May I ask those who are very
vocal against his uniform whether the country would really
benefit if he resigns from the position of COAS and will
the interference of the armed forces come to an end,”
he has been asking.
On the other hand, another political analyst
Mehfooz-ur-Rehman says: “On the Kashmir issue Gen.
Musharraf wants support of a big community like Mohajirs,
and as far as I understand, Mr. Hussain can also put India’s
point of view before Gen. Musharraf.”
He says that one should always remember
that on umpteen number of occasions, Mr. Hussain had opposed
the division of India, and this way he could advocate
the Indian cause. “In comparison to Punjabi community,
Mohajirs could be more helpful to Gen. Musharraf as he
himself is a Mohajir, and the government of India must
seek his help.”
Details of Mr Hussain's meetings with
Indian officials were not yet available but he would make
a major speech at the conference on November 6. Yet it
is a landmark visit as Mr. Hussain belongs to a political
party which claims all its roots located in India.
